# Films directed by Francis Ford Coppola **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [November 20, 2022, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271 "2022-11-20T18:20:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2022, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/1 "2022-11-20T18:20:42Z")
For very different reasons, I think **The Godfather** and **Apocalypse Now** are among the all-time best from any director, and **The Godfather Part II** is almost in the same category, IMO. The rest that I’ve seen are just okay: **Bram Stoker’s Dracula** , **The Rainmaker** , **The Godfather Part III** and **Jack**. I thought this odd until I realized that I haven’t seen many of his films. Critics seem to have liked **The Conversation** and **The Rain People**. What say all of you? Here’s his [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Ford_Coppola_filmography#Film) entry. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/2 "2022-11-20T19:46:07Z")
The Conversation is a great film in the venue of ‘Seventies political paranoia ‘thrillers’ (and Gene Hackman considered it one of his best). After _Apocalypse Now_ basically broke Coppola, his subsequent work has never had the same intensity although certainly films like _The Outsiders_, _Rumble Fish_, _Peggy Sue Got Married_, or _Tucker: The Man and His Dream_ would be good films in the oeuvre of any well-regarded director. (I think _The Cotton Club_, while not a great film in any particular sense, is a good period piece that was hamstrung by studio interference, finance and production issues, and various personalities involved in the picture.). Since the ‘Eighties Coppola has really failed to make great, or even particularly good films despite promising casts and intriguing premises (_Youth Without Youth_ was a particular disappointment) but that is scarcely unusual; John Frankenheimer went through a long period of making some pretty lousy films (and climbing into a bottle) after a strong run in the early to mid ‘Sixties, and his career didn’t really recover until the mid-‘Nineties with TV miniseries _Andersonville_ and _George Wallace_ and the underrated _Ronin_. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2022, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/3 "2022-11-20T19:51:35Z")
I recall **Tucker: The Man and his Dream** starring Jeff Bridges as quite good, and **The Conversation** starring Gene Hackman was well-regarded in its time and is still an interesting watch. I would agree that **The Godfather** and **Apocalypse Now** are masterpieces. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2022, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/4 "2022-11-20T20:23:50Z")
I thought his work on the re-edited U.S. version of _Battle Beyond the Sun_ (1962) showed real promise. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/R7Zp0BNQ3IU/maxresdefault.jpg "Battle Beyond The Sun (1959) [Science Fiction] [Adventure]") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7Zp0BNQ3IU) Granted, it’s a bit raw, there’s an undeniable intensity and authenticity - and, for perhaps a deranged few, eroticism - underscored by the realistic costumes and treatment; it’s almost like watching a nature documentary. Sadly, Mr. Coppola never returned to the _kaiju_ genre, instead choosing other, more popular, critically acclaimed and/or distinguished projects to make his reputation before overestimating the appeal of his own interests, losing his audience and suffering a career decline. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/5 "2022-11-21T01:08:13Z")
I was super drunk late at night trying to watch “Dementia 13” and doubted whether it was worth another shot. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/6 "2024-05-01T03:38:16Z")
He has a new movie, Megalopolis, coming out which will debut next month at the Cannes Film Festival: > **[Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’: An Exclusive First Look at the...](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/megalopolis-francis-ford-coppola-first-look-exclusive)** > > Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel scan the horizon, and Coppola explains his sprawling influences for the utopian drama. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/7 "2024-05-01T11:08:09Z")
I respect “The Conversation” because he wrote it, unlike “The Godfather” (greater movie) but was a #1 best-seller with the greatest actor (Marlon Brando) ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/8 "2024-05-01T18:45:28Z")
For some reason I’'m just not a big fan of Adam Driver .Good Actor. I’ll figure it out. a corrupt mayor ( **Giancarlo Esposito** ) - I am _there_. The sprawling ensemble also includes **Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne** (who was a teenager soldier in _Apocalypse Now_), **Kathryn Hunter,** singer **Grace VanderWaal,** and **James Remar,** as well as the filmmaker’s sister, _The Godfather_ actor **Talia Shire,** and her son (Coppola’s nephew) **Jason Schwartzman.** Golly. Looking forward to this. ETA: They noted Larry Fishburne yet did not make note that Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight had once been in a film together? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2024, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/9 "2024-05-05T04:48:39Z")
A trailer was just released, but I didn’t find it very appealing: > **[Megalopolis - Official 'First Look' Clip (2024) Adam Driver, Francis Ford...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB8aM7KyuiY%2F)** > > Megalopolis sci-fi drama from the iconic Francis Ford Coppola.Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must ... ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2024, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/10 "2024-05-05T13:15:52Z")
Click on [Francis Ford Coppola | Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/francis_ford_coppola). Then click on the label at the top of the chart called the Tomatometer. Look at the films toward the top for which Coppola is labeled as being the director, the screenwriter, or the writer. Unless you want to do a really serious study of Coppola that will take a fair amount of time, you can ignore for now the ones where his credit is “Self”, since those are documentaries about Coppola. You can mostly ignore the ones where he’s listed as just the producer or the executive producer. The only important one where he produced but nothing else is _American Graffiti_, which is the film that was good enough to allow George Lucas do the Star Wars films. You can then see which of the films that he directed or wrote are very good. The first two Godfather films certainly are, as are _The Conversation_ and _Patton_. You can see that the rest of his films range from pretty good to nothing special. You can also tell that most of his movie career has been about producing other people’s films. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2024, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/11 "2024-05-05T16:25:14Z")
You can also look at IMDB. By the number of votes as director: > **[Sort by Number of Votes - Most Rated Feature Films With Francis Ford Coppola ...](https://www.imdb.com/filmosearch/?explore=title_type&role=nm0000338&ref_=filmo_ref_typ&mode=detail&page=1&job_type=director&sort=num_votes,desc&title_type=movie)** > > IMDb's advanced search allows you to run extremely powerful queries over all people and titles in the database. Find exactly what you're looking for! It looks like he has directed more feature films than a lot of other directors ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/12 "2024-06-17T19:44:22Z")
> **[Francis Ford Coppola's 'Megalopolis' will hit US theaters in September](https://apnews.com/article/megalopolis-release-date-francis-ford-coppola-lionsgate-9512453342e5af521581adb980b14331)** > > After months of conjecture about the fate of Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed epic, “Megalopolis” has finally found a home. No comment as to where it will stream at. Opening at theaters September 27. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/13 "2024-06-17T19:59:54Z")
I agree that Godfather and Godfather II were great. I also liked Godfather III, unlike just about everyone else. I recognize that The Conversation is a great piece of filmmaking, but I don’t especially like it. So sue me. The same goes for Apocalypse Now. I liked Tucker very much. And I frequently re-watch his Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I don’t think anyone has yet or will make a satisfying and faithful adaptation of that novel – it’s just got too many characters and locations and carries too much baggage from previous adaptations. But Coppola deserves credit for his effort, which is one of the few that manages to cram most of the book’s characters in there. It’s visually fascinating, but it lifts a lot of its imagery and ideas from previous films (like Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr and Dan Curtis’ own “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”) ---
**Author:** ![Ulysses](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulysses/32/16083_2.png) [@Ulysses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulysses)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/14 "2024-06-17T20:40:29Z")
@CalMeacham I agree on all points. Loved Godfather and Godfather II and really liked Godfather III. I also rate Bram Stoker’s Dracula highly despite its flaws (mainly miscasting Jonathan Harker among an otherwise stellar cast). The mood it creates and its stylistic filmmaking are engrossing IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/15 "2024-06-17T20:46:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The same goes for Apocalypse Now. I don’t know which version(s) you’ve seen. I didn’t like the theater release as it seemed to be all over the place. For good reason, as it turned out, because it got chopped up in editing. The director’s cut, however, while quite long, makes a lot more sense and is more engaging IMO. > [@Ulysses](#): > > I also rate Bram Stoker’s Dracula highly despite its flaws (mainly miscasting Jonathan Harker among an otherwise stellar cast). Agreed. Gary Oldman was brilliant in the title role, as was Tom Waites as Renfield. But whoever thought Keanu Reeves was a good choice as Harker should have been fired. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/16 "2024-06-18T21:30:54Z")
> [@alovem](#): > > **The Godfather** and **Apocalypse Now** are among the all-time best from any director… Yes, I believe this to be true, if you are talking about the director’s cut of AN. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2024, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/17 "2024-06-18T21:59:39Z")
I saw the Godfather series late. I’d already seen I, Claudius, The Sopranos, and various other mafia and family melodramas and, comparatively, it was pretty tame, slow, and drifting. Maybe if I’d seen it without seeing the movies that it had impacted it would have seemed more notable but, for me, it didn’t seem so. Neither Apocalypse Now nor Heart of Darkness the book really called to me as having any particularly deep message. Martin Sheen’s freakout scene was well acted and moving but it’s hard to justify an entire movie for one good scene. I enjoyed Tucker as a kid - I haven’t seen it since then. It felt like a small and relatively meaningless film at the time. My expectation, now, would be that I’d probably find it much the same but that I’d be more annoyed by the conspiratorial tone. Tucker was probably just not the businessman that he dreamed he was. Dracula was silly and the style of direction seemed like he was actively trying to put aside his history of trying to make serious, documentary-feeling works, so he just valued as much style over substance as he could and ran with it. The soundtrack was good but that’s about all that seemed worth taking from it. The Conversation, like AN and TG just felt overly serious for too little content. Overall, I can’t say that I’ve ever felt like there was much there there with Coppola but, again, maybe I was just born late. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2024, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/18 "2024-06-18T22:31:54Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Yes, I believe this to be true, if you are talking about the director’s cut of AN. I vehemently disagree. The original theatrical cut of _Apocalypse Now_ is a perfect movie - not a single scene, not a single shot needs to be added or subtracted. The so-called “Director’s Cut”, OTOH, is a dull, meandering cash grab. 2000 Coppola isn’t one tenth of the filmmaker 1979 Coppola was. All those scenes he cut? He cut them for a reason. ---
**Author:** ![Skunkdog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@Skunkdog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skunkdog)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2024, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/19 "2024-06-18T22:37:06Z")
I have to admit that Francis Ford Coppola has a pretty astounding filmography with relatively few duds. His earlier movies helped kickstart the 70’s film revolution bringing great directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, and John Cassavettes to the forefront of American cinema and out of the independent Roger Corman school of filmmaking. Admittedly, I’ve not seen any of his films from the 60’s except Finian’s Rainbow and almost none since 2000, but I’ve almost always enjoyed the ones that I’ve seen (Jack sorta sucked). ---
**Author:** ![SwissMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@SwissMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwissMan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271/20 "2024-06-19T00:02:43Z")
I watched _The Rainmaker_ in the last couple of years and thought it was a pretty decent film. The plot gets a little convoluted, but the performances were great all around. I particularly enjoyed Danny DeVito, who practically stole the movie. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-directed-by-francis-ford-coppola/975271.md?page=2)